Victor Genke and I have been translating the works of Gottschalk of Orbais, a ninth-century Benedictine monk who was imprisoned by the Church for his allegedly heretical views on predestination.

Genke lives in Russia, works as an overseer of a team of translators there, and is finishing up his doctoral thesis on the political aspects of the controversy related to Gottschalk. Genke and I finished our book tentatively entitled Gottschalk of Orbais: Translated Texts from a Medieval Predestination Controversy. It will include twenty-one texts by Gottschalk and by others about Gottschalk. Genke wrote a very comprehensive introduction and I gathered the bibliography.

We have recently submitted the book to an academic press in the United States for inclusion in their series of medieval philosophical texts in translation. The press is very interested in publishing it, but we will wait for a contract before officially announcing it as forthcoming.

One Response

I am friends with Victor on facebook. I contacted him because of his website in 2003 and a mutual interest in Gottschalk. I was writing a seminar paper on Gottschalk. I referenced a work by a Dutch scholar and the argument in my paper was that Gottschalk was not persecuted because he preached on “double” predestination but because of other things he did and said which threatened the higher prelates.

In my research I found a translation on a treatise on predestination by another supporter of Gottschalk.

I did not stick with Gottschalk because I went elsewhere and did research on the translation movements of the Muslims during the Abbasid Caliphate.

Best regards and best of luck on the forthcoming book.
Richard Chelvan
I am Ricardus Theologus on LibraryThing